We request funds to partially support the Biopolymers Gordon Research Conference to be held from June 16 - 21, 2002 at Salve Regina College in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. The funds will be used primarily to pay travel expenses for the speakers attending the conference. A small portion of the funds will be used to pay for the conference fees of a few post-doctoral and graduate students who will be chosen to give talks based on submitted abstracts. The purpose of the Biopolymers Gordon Conference since its inception in 1964 has been to bring together biochemists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians who seek to understand the structure, dynamics, and function of biological macromolecules, particularly proteins, nucleic acids, and protein-nucleic acid complexes. The conference traditionally includes thermodynamic, kinetic and structural studies, involving experiments, computer simulations, and theory. This conference is a unique forum in which these disciplines and topics converge. The topics chosen for the 2002 conference represent fundamental areas of longstanding interest together with an emphasis on new and emerging research areas and methodologies. We seek to bring together researchers who are addressing related questions with different approaches, as well as researchers whose achievements in one area suggest important applications to other systems, all united by their common focus on proteins and nucleic acids. We plan to enrich the conference by involving distinguished senior scientists as leaders for discussions on important directions for future study. Since this conference is traditionally oversubscribed, we will endeavor to select enthusiastic and thoughtful participants with significant past accomplishments and substantial future promise. The program encompasses some of the most exciting research in the field of nucleic acid and protein biophysics and promises to generate lively discussions both in and outside of the sessions.